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ALEXANDER WILSON (1766-1813)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 692 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ALEXANDER WILSON (1766-1813)  ,
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American ornithologist, was born in Paisley, Scotland, on the 6th of
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July 1766 . His
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father, a handloom weaver, soon removed to the country, and there combined
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weaving with agriculture, distilling and
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smuggling —conditions which no doubt helped to develop in the boy that love of rural pursuits and adventure which was to determine his career . At first he was placed with a tutor and destined for the church, but afterwards he was apprenticed as a weaver . Then he became a peddler and spent a
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year or two in travelling through Scotland, recording in his journal every
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matter of natural
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history or antiquarian
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interest . Having incurred a short imprisonment for lampooning the master-weavers in a trade dispute, he emigrated to
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America in 1794 . After a few years of weaving, peddling and desultory observation, he became a
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village schoolmaster, and in 1802 obtained an appointment near
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Philadelphia, where he formed the acquaintance of William Bartram the naturalist . Under his influence Wilson began to draw birds, having conceived the idea of illustrating the
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ornithology of the
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United States; and thenceforward he steadily accumulated materials and made many expeditions . In 18o6 he obtained the assistant-editorship of the American edition of Rees's
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Encyclopaedia, and thus acquired more means and leisure for his
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great
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work, American Ornithology, the first
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volume of which appeared in the autumn of 18o8, after which he spent the winter in a journey" in search of birds and sub-scribers." By the spring of 1813 seven volumes had appeared; but the arduous expedition of that summer, in search of the marine waterfowl to which the remaining volume was to be devoted, gave a shock to his already impaired
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health, and he succumbed to dysentery at Philadelphia on the 23rd of August 1813 . Of his poems, not excepting the Foresters (Philadelphia, 1805), nothing need now be said, save that they no doubt served to develop his descriptive powers . The eighth and ninth volumes of the American Ornithology were edited after his decease by his friend George Ord, and the work was continued by Lucien
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Bonaparte (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1825-1833) . The
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complete work was re-published several times, and has
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Miscellaneous
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Prose
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Works and Poems was edited with a memoir by the Rev . A .

B .

Grosart (Paisley, 1876) . A statue was erected to him at Paisley in 1876 .

End of Article: ALEXANDER WILSON (1766-1813)
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